Cornichon.org

The Real Bastille Deal

Allons, mes enfants! On va faire la fête!

Let's start the party with a glass of Veuve Clicquot poured at Seattle Cellars by Cindy Sido of Alaska Distributors. Then we head to Le Pichet, where chef and co-owner Jim Drohman has drawn door duty. Inside, the menu is pared down to sandwiches, frites and crèpes, with gypsy-jazz guitar music to enhance the mood.

At Campagne, a distinct upstairs-downstairs flavor. Chef Daisley Gordon presides over a $65 prix fixe dinner that starts with quenelle de poisson, a halibut dumpling topped with whitefish caviar. Sous chef Nikki Schiebel did the actual cooking; Gordon inspects, wipes and dispatches.

In the alley behind Café Campagne, there's a crowd scarfing up $5 merguez sausages, downing goblets of wine and listening to French music.

And at Maximilien, another accordionist, bleu-blanc-rouge balloons and a $34 prix fixe menu.

Fireworks? Not in Seattle. Need to be content with memories of the Eiffel Tower and feu d'artifice from a couple of summers back.

Remembrance of California Barbecues

Was reading David Rosengarten's award-winning newsletter, this month's issue about Kobe beef, including mention of a much-prized cut of meat known as tri-tip. It's what Californians call bottom sirloin butt, especially around Santa Barbara, where they guard their recipes for tri-tip marinade as closely as their neighbors, the Santa Ynez Valley vintners, protect their techniques for making perfect pinot noir.

My brother David, as it happens, is a tri-tip master of Proustean talents. No sooner had I sent him Rosengarten's comments than he replied with this dispatch from his ranch overlooking the vineyards along Alisos Canyon Road:

À la recherche du Tri-Tip perdu...


Marc was just here, and we bbqed some, not according to the SMaria recipe, but with a Bifstek alla Fiorentina type marinade. Marc added some chipotle sauce (to the usual olive oil, italian seasoning, Pappy's sesoning, cracked pepper, garlic) as well as two "secret" ingredients we'd used earlier in the week on oven-roasted leg of goat: Hediard's (yes, Parisian) Raz El Hanout and Mélange Alexandrie.

These two Arabian inspired spice mixtures are what I like to call "dark" in flavor. The Raz has a slight curriness (clove, turmeric, ginger, carvil spice, coriander, cumin, pepper, anise, black pepper), the Alexandrie (black pepper,, cayenne, ginger, clove, coriander, Jamaican pepper, cardomom, fennel, cinnamon and "paradise seeds") a smell that reminds me of a tin of old Balkan Sobranie white label -- remember that stuff?

All goes to show that no recipe is immutable, and that one should follow one's nose (and empty out the refrigerator shelves of obscurities) when cooking.

Explanatory notes to Cornichon readers: Marc is my nephew. Balkan Sobranie is a [discontinued] pipe tobacco favored by a friend of the family.

By the by [David's dispatch continues], the two spices from Hediard were purchased at Dean and DeLuca in NYC but are not available on their website.

There are versions of raz el hanout available from purespice.com ($5 a bottle), described as:

"Raz el Hanout is an interesting blend of sweet spices essential to Moroccan cooking. I find that this blend brings together fruit and meat wonderfully.
Besides couscous and other Moroccan dishes, there are classic European recipes for fruit and meat. A recipe, Pork and Prunes, appears often in old cookbooks. I had tried it once and found it only fairly interesting. When I developed Raz el Hanout, I made it again and it was absolutely terrific. It took what I considered to be a mundane dish and lifted it to new heights."

Chefshop.com [based here in Seattle, as it happens] has a version for $5.75, described as:

"Ras El Hanout is a truly dazzling combination of spices and herbs that is traditionally improvised by Moroccan merchants in their souks. Depending on the needs of the customer and the complexity of the dish, Ras El Hanout can be comprised of over twenty ingredients. ""Ras el hanout"" means head of the shop, or the ""best of the best"", and only the finest, and often the most esoteric, ingredients are used. India Tree's Ras El Hanout mixture contains allspice, black pepper, mace, nutmeg, cumin, clove, cardamom, turmeric and gingerroot, and dried rosebuds. Ras el Hanout is distinctively Moroccan in character, and is commonly used during the winter months in foods intended to warm the body. Use it to season game, to blend with rice, couscous, tagines. Use with discretion: not only is it a rich and deeply warming spice, it is a purported aphrodisiac!

Finally there's a version from zamouispices.com:

"In Moroccan language, Ras el Hanout literally means head of the store.
(also known as ras al hanout or ras el hanouth) Ras el Hanout is a spice blend that Zamouri Spices is proud to present as its best and most unique mix that any adventurous palates may love to experience. The secret of this mix and its recipe is past down through generations. Native to Morocco, every spice vendor in that region has its own unique recipe. Zamouri too has its unique blend used only in the remote region of Zamour (North Africa Atlas Mountains) for a thousand year.

"Ingredients could range from 20 to 50 different spices including: Ingredients: Lavender, allspice, paprika, turmeric, ajawan seeds, anise seeds, chili pepper, kalajeera, cloves, galangal, rose buds, black pepper, white pepper, monk's pepper, cinnamon, star anise, nutmeg, cardamom, ginger, coriander, cumin, mace, fenugreek, cayenne pepper, yellow curry, cilantro, fennel, sage, orrisroot. (Sorry, no spanish fly. It is illegal in the USA) This blend is claimed to have aphrodisiac properties. Used mostly during cold seasons by locals. You can add a pinch or tsp to your favorite soup, stew."

Bastille Day comes early

They ran out of crepes. Brasserie Margaux ran out of coleslaw for the salmon baguettes and came this close to running out of salmon, too. Dude, that's like 800 crepes and 600 portions of fish. The organic French bakery Biofournil had to put in two calls for more bread. Muscadet grower Pierre-Yves Lusseaud, on his first trip to Seattle, ran out of wine. Mon dieu!

Okay, so wasn't the 14th. But if Seattle Center says it's Bastille Day, and French Consul Jack Cowan says it's Bastille Day, well, chers amis, we can pretend it's Bastille Day.

Grand merci to chefs Jacques Boiroux and Thierry Rautureau and master baker Michel Robert, among the many who donated time, talent and "product" to the festivities.

The crowd loved it. And fans of the jazz guitarist Django Reinhardt, jazz violinist Stephane Grappelli and "gypsy jazz" in general were particularly delighted by the last group of the day, Pearl Django, four local musicians with an international reputation.

And if you missed the Pearl Django set, don't despair; they're playing regularly this summer in venues across Puget Sound.

Meantime, you can download a clip of their music here: